William Scranton

William Warren "Bill" Scranton
38th Governor of Pennsylvania
In office January 15, 1963 – January 17, 1967
Preceded by	David L. Lawrence
Succeeded by	Raymond P. Shafer
United States Representative for District 10 (Scranton area)
In office January 3, 1961 – January 3, 1963
Preceded by	Stanley Propkop
Succeeded by	Joseph M. McDade
13th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office March 15, 1976 – January 19, 1977
President	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Succeeded by	Andrew Young
Born	July 19, 1917 Madison New Haven County Connecticut
Died	July 28, 2013 (aged 96) Montecito Santa Barbara County California
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Mary Lowe Chamberlin Scranton (1918-2015) (married 1942-2013, his death)
Children	Susan Scranton Dawson William Worthington Scranton, III (Pennsylvania lieutenant governor, 1979-1987) Joseph Curtis Scranton Peter Kip Scranton Parents: William Worthington and Marion Margery Warren Scranton
Alma mater	Hotchiss School Yale University (BA) (LLB)
Occupation	Attorney and Businessman
Religion	Presbyterian
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Army Air Forces
Years of service	1941–1945
Rank	Captain

William Warren Scranton (July 19, 1917 – July 28, 2013), was a Republican politician from his native Pennsylvania. From 1961 to 1963, he was a U.S. Representative. He was governor from 1963 to 1967; at the Pennsylvania restricted governors to a single four-year term. From 1976 to 1977, he was briefly the United States Ambassador to the United Nations post which he filled at the request of then U.S. President Gerald Ford, on whose transition team Scranton had served.

Scranton was a maternal descendant of New Englanders who reached Massachusetts on the Mayflower. He was born in Madison in New Haven, Connecticut, to vacationing parents, attorney and Lackawanna Iron & Coal Company industrialist William Worthington Scranton (1876-1955), and the former Marion Margery Warren (1884-1960), a long-time member of the Republican National Committee.^[1][2]

Scranton was educated at the Scranton Country Day School, founded by his parents. He then continued his studies at the Fessenden School in Massachusetts and Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. He then entered Yale University in New Haven and completed legal studies in 1946 at the Yale Law School. He served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, the forerunner of the United States Air Force and after the war practiced law and became active like his parents in the Pennsylvania GOP. As a U.S. House member, Scranton gained attention as a Moderate Republican. He handily won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1962 and then defeated in the general election the Democrat Richardson K. Dilworth (1898-1974), the mayor of Philadelphia from 1956 to 196 and also a member of a wealthy political family. Dilworth, conducted a name-calling campaign in which he dubbed Scranton as "Little Lord Fauntleroy from the coal fields." At the time of his election, Scranton said his net worth was $8 million (nearly 70 million in 2021 dollars). Scranton was a strong campaigner and won the governorship, then limited to one four-year term, by a half million votes.^[3] Scranton polled 2,424,918 votes (55.3 percent) to Dilworth's 1,938,627 (44.3 percent). The remaining .3 percent went to the Socialist Labor Party candidate.^[4]State Senator Raymond Philip Shafer (1917-2006) of Meadville was Scranton's running-mate for lieutenant governor and his successor as governor in 1967. With the election in 1970 of Democrat Milton Jerrold Shapp (1912-1994), Pennsylvania governors became eligible to seek reelection.

Representative Scranton supported the civil rights movement and was a staunch advocate for the Peace Corps, established in 1961 by the executive order of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. As governor, Scranton advanced the establishment of community colleges and pushed for an increase in the state sales tax.^[2]

Scranton entered the race at the last minute for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination after the collapse of fellow Moderate Republican Nelson Rockefeller's candidacy. Goldwater defeated Scranton at the convention held in San Francisco. Rockefeller was governor of New York from 1959 to 1974. President Richard M. Nixon named Scranton as chairman of the three-member President's Commission on Campus Unrest in the aftermath of the deaths of four students on May 4, 1970, on the campus at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He was affiliated with the liberal Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations and the national council of the Boy Scouts.^[5]

Scranton lived in retirement in Dalton in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, which is eight miles from Scranton. He died at the age of ninety-six at his last home in Montecito in Santa Barbara County, California. He was cremated. His widow followed him in death in December 2015. The couple had four children, William Worthington Scranton, the former lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, Susan S. Dawson, Joseph Curtis Scranton, and Peter Kip Scranton.^[5]

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